An 87-year-old man has been killed and four other people left with life-threatening injuries after two head-on crashes in one horrific afternoon on Far North roads.
The police investigation is continuing but driving too fast in wet conditions is thought to have been a factor in the fatal crash on State Highway 1 just south of Kawakawa about 4.30pm on Sunday.
The second occurred on SH10 between Kerikeri and Kaeo about 8.30pm on Sunday as a car pulled out to overtake and smashed head-on into another vehicle. A foreign national has been charged in relation to the SH10 crash and is due in court tomorrow.
The Kawakawa crash, directly outside the oyster shop at Waiomio, involved a south-bound Toyota RAV4 and a northbound Honda Odyssey people mover. All three people in the RAV4 had to be cut free by volunteers of the Kawakawa and Paihia fire brigades, along with the passenger in the Odyssey.
Sergeant Phil Le Comte, of Kerikeri police, said the 75-year-old Northlander driving the RAV4, who was the wife of the deceased, and a 67-year-old passenger were critically injured, as was the 32-year-old Odyssey passenger.